


Kairosclerosis

by fledermauss



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Endgame, honestly who knows - Freeform, i guess?????, these two are just sad optimistic piles of sad, writing two characters witht he same pronouns and hair color and all that is difficult spare me pls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4868129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fledermauss/pseuds/fledermauss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort of companion to Lachesism.</p>
<p>Morgan wakes up in a field to a blinding sunny afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kairosclerosis

**Author's Note:**

> Two Suns and no Moon does not a planet full of life make.  
> Or maybe it does, but what a miserable planet that'd be.
> 
> Anyways, this was originally going to be some happier extra tie-off to Lachesism, but it honestly?? doesn't tie anything off and might leave you less satisfied (I'm not too satisfied with the turnout)  
> I ended up dawdling a lot and so there're probably inconsistencies and it drawls at points, but I hope it's still worth a read anyhow!  
> Thanks again to [this gay meme](http://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution) for always putting up with my bullshit (feetepeetle for next Grima)

There’s a humming sound which greets him as he opens his eyes into the blinding, yet welcomingly bright sun. The grass on either side of his head tickles his ears, and the cool springtime breeze seems to breathe life into him as he cheerfully sits up and yawns.

“Heyo, Morgan! Have a nice nap?” a familiar voice sounds from behind him accompanied by a warm glowing face.

“Father!” Morgan shouts, instantaneously throwing his arms around the other and holding him snug. He smiles with still-adjusting eyes and relishes the deep laughter rocking them both before pulling back to ask his usual questions.

“Where did you go this time?”

“Oh, you know, just the outskirts of Ylisse. I thought it’d rain this morning so I figured I’d skip out on catching a cold and getting stuck in Plegia again, haha.”

“Did you find anything there?” The _for me_ is implied. The anticipation, not so much, as Morgan expectantly bounces in the grass before Henry.

“W _ellll_ ~” He drags the L along the roof of his mouth and hides an arm behind him as if there is suspense to build even if he always brings something back. “I did find this!” he boasts and out pops a figeater beetle, crawling calmly along the back of Henry’s left wrist. Morgan leans forward, face full of wonder and uncontainable glee. “This little guy was hiding in one of my pockets after I walked by this village having some sort of festival. Guess he wanted to say hi.” Henry hands the bug off to the wide-eyed boy, watching closely as his son observes it from every angle. He doesn’t really share Morgan’s love for bugs, but they must be pretty awesome considering they’re to the kid what most forest creatures are to Henry.

His mind follows the boy whose eyes are as umber clay, impressionable and ever-changing. He watches lids close gently as the child places his beetle on a leaf and rolls onto his stomach. Morgan is gentle with his new companion and sinks into a world of his own, guiding the insect through the grass with cupped hands pulling it this way and that. Henry can see the gears turning with no intention to harm, only to guide, and a caustic blizzard of introspection melts away the fears which ebb and flow within him.

Despite his smiles and laughter, Morgan resembles his mother in unmistakable ways. He is always buried in learning material, eager to traverse a sea if only it’ll teach him how to read the waters. When he hums, it is loose and absent minded with a tune likely carried over from something Inigo or Brady has shown him at one point. But most of all, it is his impossible to place warmth, much different from the wretchedly hot sandstorms of Plegia and the biting frost of Regna Ferox. It was this warmth that kept Henry from pointing out the all too glaring Eyes of Grima painted across Robin’s sleeves and bringing Morgan to Plegia. It is their warmth that tethers Henry, firmly holding him back so he can grin and bear the pain thrown at him.

Idly staring, Henry feels vague, like a muggy ghost town surrounded by the growls of mongrels wrapped in sweat-condensed fur compared to the perceivable softness of a refreshingly mild summer’s day Morgan is. He is reminded of the puppies he’d once found abandoned with Ricken and their unbelievably cuddly temperaments. He recalls his wolf, who had played with him roughly until the day her body grew cold and her fur clumped; the woodsy smell still lingers in the backside of his sinuses, warning him that puppies and wolves are not the same. Nonetheless, Henry believes he would react similarly if anything like Wolfie’s untimely parting were to happen to Morgan. With nothing to lose, that void would devour him, leaving expiration and inconceivable heaviness in his wake.

Morgan delights in the smallest details of life, tracing over the thumb-sized beetle’s tiny grooves and making remarks on how its iridescent back shines or how its “tiny bug face is so wonderfully adorable.” And when the beetle responds by turning its face away, Morgan’s laughter fills the entire field, the earth taking it in like much-needed sustenance while his father lives and breathes it -- that laugh which is so like Robin’s in its fullness and elastic energy.

Henry has only two types of laughs, the kind when he is killing and the kind that itches at the back of his throat during anything else. The repetition makes him seem insincere, but it is the rippling sensation his magic creates as it whizzes past that others are afraid of. Even the Shepherds sometimes forget the quiet rage built up within him and mistake it for an enemy’s weapon. Yet Morgan never doubts his father, never misses a beat when it comes to comforting or making up for the mage’s shortcomings. At most, Morgan wishes he could remember more from his past than that smile and voice, to be able to help in ways he currently can’t.

When Morgan inevitably lies down on his back again to see the glow of light bouncing off his beetle friend uninterrupted, he drops it on his face, going silent for a moment before bursting into a fit of snorts and chiming, nonsensical melodies again. As the sun catches behind him, Morgan holds his face in his hands, indicating that the figeater has fallen down his cloak and is busily feather dusting the little hairs on his back. His face lights up his hair as his body jitters this way and that, a flushed pink all over from launching into such an extended torrent of delight, and Henry notices the colors of his hair and skin blend into one another like fog at sunset. Like droplets hanging in the air, skimming the water’s surface, but nonconforming to its whole nature.

“..Hey, Morgan?” he interrupts, prompting the boy to scramble onto his rump too quickly with grass and dirt still intermixed within his sterling locks. The boy forgets to make a sound signalling his attention, so father and son share a moment of dry silence, both expectant.

“Oh, uh, sorry--I just, um,” the boy stutters as he mentally reprimands himself. _Mother would never be so distracted._ He had been daydreaming about flying on a beetle’s back, a new kind of mount for those less talented in the arts of femininity. Picking at his sleeves which have grown feathered at the ends and no longer comfortably fit over his palms, Morgan feels his tiny playmate trying to climb up his pant leg and absentmindedly helps it up. The explosions of heat in his cheeks feel like humidity in the winter, unwelcome and inconvenient, though his embarrassment is quickly doused by Henry’s enveloping giggles.

“You’re cuter than a puppy when you’re all flustered, nya ha ha!” He leaves the ‘dead’ part out for once; he doesn’t really want to think about dead puppies anymore. Ruffling Morgan’s hair, he changes subjects before Morgan can fumblingly protest, “Anyhow~ what’ve you been dreaming about out here lately?”

That halts Morgan’s furiously reddening face and drains the rosy hues straight into his stomach. “Dreams? Hmmm....” He drags the sound out, hoping that his deliberating will buy him time to come up with a -- well, not a lie, per se, but a half-truth. Unfortunately, he no longer remembers the dreams he had years ago, before Grima, so Mother’s face is all that he sees in his mind’s eye. The troubled look decorating his brow must have caught Henry’s attention, but if it did, Morgan sees no such signal telling him as much.

His recent dreams are a confusing mess, somewhere between bliss and terror and something keeps him coming back whenever he has a moment alone. Some nights they are of being carried on his father’s narrow shoulders and braiding messy, tiny braids into a vast ocean of sky. Other times, they are of Mother, with eyes pulsing and squirming along the cracking skin of her face. He would often wake up to the sun and feel somewhat thankful his old memories had gone up in smoke outside of his dreams long ago. The last thing he wanted was for his few lasting years of Mother being a mother to be perverted by images that couldn’t possibly have happened, the night terrors of a child.

Studying Henry’s face and seeing it more serious than usual, he thinks he should answer truthfully. Still, knowing Henry wouldn’t judge him is little comfort in the face of his too realistic dreams. How could he even put to words the despair and fright?

“Well, lately I dream of mother!” he decides cheerily. _Perfect! It’s not a lie, so I don’t need to worry father with any unnecessary details._ Morgan internally nods to himself in congratulation.

For a long while, the field is filled with a silencing sound of wind and rustling greenery as Morgan feels himself being scrutinized by Henry. The two hold their smiles at each other until Henry relents, turning his body away and tipping his head back.

“I sure miss Robin.” Henry says it with a lilt that rises like the sun, but the words dip Morgan in a crushing heaviness somewhere deep in his chest and shoulders. He wants to say that he does, too -- reassure his father that she will return. Still, part of him is dying along with his previously endless well of optimism. Whatever is left would serve only to depress them both further, and so he holds his tongue, nearly biting through. He feels Henry’s arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling his entire body into a tight hug.

At first, he is hesitant to reach back, unsure whether Henry aimed for a fatherly gesture or meant to help. Then, the mage’s shuddering, slow intake of breath betrays him, tells Morgan that this is for his own sake, and the tactician rubs gently at the knots in his father’s back and shoulders. Golden sunlight streaks across their faces until Morgan feels the burns-to-be radiating off of Henry’s skin and his own arms itch from peeling skin. Still, the grass is cool and there is a light breeze singing soft _I love you_ ’s in his ears and he holds onto the comfort that Robin is with them throughout the air, the grass, and the trees.

**Author's Note:**

> ...after all, Grima is everything, right?
> 
> I hope that was enjoyable and the ending wasn't too flat (i kinda lost steam there if that wasn't evident)  
> Morgan was less of a challenge to write than Henry, personality-wise, I think. But then there's the challenge of the whole enigma which surrounds him. What do his lost memories hold? Are they truly lost? How many Morgans are there? Does this mean that despite everything the future Robin partakes in still end in ruin? Who knows!


End file.
